Now Playing

Opinion: How Jack Lew Failed Up

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... the time the Treasury Department this to be run by serious people ... Alexander Hamilton Douglas tilling just to name a few ... tomatoes Jack Lew stack up ... Wall Street Journal associate editor James Freeman is here to explain ... I James in two thousand for Jack Lew said the following quote ... in my career proves anything it's that you can start at the bottom rung on the ladder and then that pretty close to the top truth or fiction ... while the euro in the fullness of time ... it maybe I'm starring at the bottom exactly so or maybe starting in the middle man ... and ... it turned out he could make a lot of money in the bank to ... filling into the arms of taxpayer Citibank ... Citibank but ... with the right political connections he novelists of ... his hero most of the top of American finance the nominee to run the treasure so we've got a great editorial in in today's paper on at the Citigroup cut ... its stance ... didn't seem like it in very much the chance why was he so highly compensated ... but there's a question that I think a lot of senators are going to be asking and he really hasn't provided the public explanation yet ... he'd been really a it's been a difficult ... challenge because if he ... if he owns in any of the problems that occurred there ... I he has to answer about what he was ... doing internally as they were treating or possibly missed reading customers of what he was doing about the risk of DVT ... did he seem to financially spurred coming ... or he can say well you know I didn't know anything that was going on ... not my prob not my job and then there's question what what what your job exactly an inquiry being paid and ... it's it's a big question because it was installed they are basically at the suggestion of Robert Rubin the ... Clinton missed ration colleague bigger political player who had been up by the window wind authority at Citigroup quite possibly the worst run bank ... in America cost American taxpayers a lot ... of that this isn't the only tenant Mr Lew was compensated that seemingly for his political connections NYU well that's that's an interesting story of this comes to us from of the ... school paper there then why do the dusting journalists at the Washington Square News of ... the pointed out in two thousand for that as an administrator Jack Lew was making more in salary than most college presidents in the United States in fact he was making even more than his boss so ... then encouraged NYU President John Sexton but James we've got another Bush era I NYU mattered a lot more to me than whether or not consumer loans are up and down ... so it's it's all in this incredibly high paying job in line you we don't know what the world he was doing ... he cared about it more than consumer loans ... what do you know what is to say hey I think I think you have to wonder if you're in the onthe side of the finance committee reviewing is the nation ... but this is really the right fit for Treasury secretary there is that the idea ... of storing the wash impose about how we took the of the portrait of Alexander Hamilton off his office wall when he moved into a ... it is so turned off is a new bomb administration to ... this ... quote from a meeting with students when he was in NY in two thousand for suggests that he really doesn't care that much about the finance to ... what consumers are doing how much consumer credit there is an economy whether loans are rising or falling ... this is something that the Treasury secretary of probably audit to ... identify especially if now with ... most of the Dodd Frank law he's responsible for these than the more official responsible for spotting risks in the economy ... and if you don't serve the credit markets ... probably in the heart of aspirants in the financials is well isn't that comforting to hear a guy who profited from crony capitalism is can be installed at the head of the